I need a real air supply for the airbrush. Canned air isn't cutting it. As it cools down (from being used), pressure drops and the spray gets all spattery. It's obnoxious. I don't necessarily want a compressor though, since that's kind of noisy. I dunno.

good portion cleared, text in, making progresss. My plans fell through so I'm doing the whole thing tonight I think. Photobooth flipped it so the text reads the right way but on the original it's backwards so it will printtt

_________________Space has stared into the tiny syrup holes of our shame and it does not judge us. - Amandabear

I've put my novel aside for now so I can work on some short pieces which galvanize me. I am currently drafting two things: one is, for now, a creative non-fiction piece about food. I'm just throwing everything out there to see what broad themes emerge that I can hang it all on and I'm starting to think that it may turn into a fictionalized piece largely/loosely based on this awful babysitter I had as a kid and her horrible sammich combinations that she forced my sister and I to eat because that seems to be the most interesting thing in the whole melange. It will be a comedy! It has to be a comedy, because I couldn't pull off a serious tone on this type of material. Also this woman desparately needs to be made fun of.

The second piece is a lot of fun but it's starting to turn into a novella. It's entirely fiction, about someone lost in the woods, so to speak, sci-fi-ish and, again, there are comedic elements, which I tend to pull out first. I'll need to find a bit of seriousness as I go on and it's there, but that comes more with time. I say it's turning into a novella as I'm still just really setting the story up and I'm already on page 10. Future editing will change it all drastically, naturally, but it's turning into an odyssey which I'm not too upset about. I've conceptualized it initially as a short story but I've also drawn it out into a whole novel length (in my mind). But I want to write the short story version first. Focus, focus!

I'm taking turns working on these two things now and probably will be for the rest of the summer.

here's my current little side project while the work on the kitchen is on hold. It's an old table we found in the barn, no clue about its age but it seemed worth saving. It was too rough to just clean up and use and I was afraid the paint was lead based so I wanted to make sure that was encapsulated. Right now it's got about 5 coats of primer on the top and 3 on the legs. I hope to get the base coat of white onto it later today. The bulk is going to remain white but portions of the legs will get bands of color in two different shades of green to match our mudroom.

mudroom for reference

_________________Technically, we're all half-centaur - Nick Offerman

Imma let you finish, but the Paranthropus Boisei were the greatest vegans ever.

Ugh I saw all these cave paintings complaining about vegan cheese options. I don't miss those days. -Isa

I've been inspired lately to experiment with more structured narratives in my stories. Inspired, specifically, by two great short stories I read this year (Ms. Pacman by Josie Sigler and Goodbye Porkpie Hat by Michael Christie) and also a French film I saw recently called "My Life to Live" (or something like that) which I saw as a cinematic departure in narrative. So, anyhoo, last week, in one sitting, I wrote an 18-page draft of a story with a structured narrative that is not a typical chronlogical and I hope to start more serious work on it now, but there's one more story draft I have to get out of the way (just finished another one yesterday). Also, I'd like to work on a structured narrative in a smaller form and maybe I can come up with a structure for my novel because I'm not too jazzed about a chronological narrative for it, as it's going now. I want to do something different! And when I came up for the structure I used for this story, the writing came so easy. I mean the editing will be the most work, as always, but just the ideas of the first draft flowed easily, they didn't keep damming up and stalling and I didn't have to keep stopping to think my way out of or around things, it all just came in one go.

So hopefully by next week, I'll have three (longish) short story manuscripts to work on through the fall and when one frustruates me, I can turn to the other.

Lots of projects on the go! Fall is always a very productive time for me creatively.

I am also having a productive time. I have a new line of paper works in my shop and a couple of new onesie designs and a few more ideas I haven't had time to work on yet because I've been getting the other stuff photographed and listed. I am making a point to thoroughly enjoy now. I haven't made much since the beginning of the year because of my move so it is extra nice to be churning the work out right now. I do love me some process.

I'm working on a choreography right now and I have a really hard time picking out the right music. I want to do something completely different, like doing a contemporary routine to a breakcore song.It's for a competition so I feel a huge pressure to do something great... which doesn't always help the creative process.

EDIT: and oh! I have all this wonderful jersey fabric in dusty greens but I have no idea what to do with it. Life's hard ;)

I've pulled out my old ink pens and started some drawings. Nothing great, just some playing around to get back in the swing of it so that late I can hopefully draw the images that are in my head! Unfortunately, my head doesn't come up with simple images and my drawing skills are super rusty (and were never that developed/trained to begin with, just functional).

My kitchen has been my never ending project. Lately it's been all about trim work. I'm a novice woodworker trying to make window and door trim to match the 80 year old stuff in the rest of the house so it's slow going but rewarding. Someday when I get this all wrapped up, I get to try to build pantry shelving to match the old setup in the relocated pantry space.

and a re-purposed front panel from my wife's old upright piano.

_________________Technically, we're all half-centaur - Nick Offerman

Imma let you finish, but the Paranthropus Boisei were the greatest vegans ever.

Ugh I saw all these cave paintings complaining about vegan cheese options. I don't miss those days. -Isa

It is currently 4am and I have just spent the entire day crocheting. I have not even been working on any of the projects I'm actually getting paid to do. I got the idea in my head last night that it would be awesome to try cables, and then after I had halfway completed my hat, I got the even better idea to unravel the whole thing and start over with stripes, and then when I had nearly finished my striped cable hat, I realized it was going to be too big for my head, so I had to make a decision as to whether to finish this one and have it not be for me, or unravel again and modify the pattern. I chose the latter.

I feel like I'm supposed to be like, grrrr arrgghh I had to undo this so many times and it's not even done yet, waaaaahhh. But actually, I feel really happy about how I spent my day. I can make awesome cables now!! And I've learned so much about the hat construction process! And maybe tomorrow I'll finish my hat! And then I'll have a fabulous stripey cabley hat!

_________________Man, fork the gender card, imma come at you with the whole damned gender deck. - Olives Did you ever think that, like, YOU are a sexy costume FOR a diva cup? - solipsistnationblog!FB!